


Pandora

by HiHereAmI



Series: with hope, from the bottom [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Five Stages of Grief, Fluff and Angst, It's a story about healing, M/M, Matt and Sam are dead in this one, Memories, Road Trips, Summer Vacation, Time Skips
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-20
Updated: 2018-09-02
Packaged: 2019-05-25 20:07:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 13,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14984633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HiHereAmI/pseuds/HiHereAmI
Summary: In the summer of 2012, Pidge Holt tries to make new, exciting memories.In the autumn of 2018, Katie tries to forget.*Or, how destiny comes full circle.





	1. Soap Bubbles

**Author's Note:**

> I'm Ami and I bring a bag full of angst, fluff and hidge.  
> Even though I already have a WIP, because I just _needed_ some more Hidge into the world! Small disclaimer that the science here and the explanation of how a lab works is totally made up. If you have any ideas, theories or things you'd like to happen, pop them here! I'd like to hear!  
>  You can come shout at me about the fic, Hunk and Pidge or Voltron in general on my tumblr @hihereami! Hope you enjoy it and PLEASE if you can leave a comment with your opinion <3 It pumps me up!  
>  **Big thanks to Kate and Lee who beta'ed the heck out of this and to the Hidgecord, who made me want to do this!**

_September, 2018_

 

Don't write the horrors of war—  some old writing advice says — write about those old discarded child-sized shoes at the side of an empty sidewalk.

Write about how they are burnt, tinted by overuse, how its smell will fill your lungs for years after inhaling it.

How shoes are such a simple thing, but there they are, bloodied, empty but filled with a terrifying reality.

If Pidge Holt had to describe the summer of 2012 in this particular manner, her memories would evoque empty rooms and the sensation of white noise intermittently throbbing on her skull. She would hold dearly, as if it wasn’t a simple nostalgic remembrance, a small peridot stone. She would breathe in and feel the mixed scent of grease and honey.

She would remember.

She wouldn’t want to let go.

Katie Holt, on the other hand, would rather spend every day left of her existence in blank than thinking about that distant summer.

 

* * *

 

Being an adult is a matter of fake it till you make it, Katie thinks and has thought for a real long while now. The more she dwells on the idea, the more she’s certain of it.

And, damn, pretending to be a full functioning adult is key in new jobs.

Even though lab scientists still preserve that overeager, childlike enthusiasm and that’s perfectly acceptable while on their workroom; out of the laboratory they still have to stand tall and walk straight. And use heels. And try to _survive_ in heels.

 _Fake a bit more, Holt. You can get in your crocs when you arrive to the lab_ , she encourages herself, trying not to laugh out loud at the memory of the neon green shoes waiting eagerly for her.

Stumbling a little in her heels, she walks out of the subway and into the big building where _Grellower & Family Inc _. has their main investigation headquarters.

Even though she had gone there for her job interview before, the sight is truly breathtaking. Wide marble stairs lead to a fancy hall with high white ceilings. Depending on where one goes, there’s a different set of security stations to pass through. Katie breathes shallowly, smiles absently at the staff guarding the station and quickens her pace towards the elevator.

She feels so oddly nervous and jumpy, uncomfortable in her own skin. Maybe it’s the heels, maybe it’s first day jitters, maybe it’s the fact that it’s her first time in a corporation’s laboratory since…

No.

Not going there. Not today. She won’t allow it.

There are a few people waiting for the lift as well, some in suits and some others in white coats, concentrated in their own things, their phones, their notes. She can’t stare at them for long or it’ll become awkward. If they are worth meeting, she’ll eventually meet them, for god’s sake.

Can this anxiety go away? This _never_ happens to her.

Fiddling a bit with her suit, she wonders briefly if this is a good decision. It’s so little but at the same time, so _big_ . A promise of stability, the sensation of _commitment_ to something fills her in a way that it hasn’t in years.

Katie breaths in and when she closes her eyes, she can see, crystal clear, all those years of moves and motels, of walls painted by someone else, furniture she doesn’t own, decisions she hasn’t made. Boxes stacked, boxed filled with dust, filled with the most primary necessities and also filled with memories. Boxes that would never be wholly unpacked.

A small ping sounds. She breathes out and opens her eyes.

_There’s no need to be nervous. Adults do this all the time._

Adults do this all the time. She will be fine - Katie repeats to herself, while smiling at the old lady who motions her to get in the elevator first.

She wonders during the ride if Professor Ryner, her assigned superior, would be a fair boss. Would she allow crocs in her lab? Would she insist she keeps the heels? Would she be the kind of person that makes small talk? Katie hates small talk, specially for how awkward it is. Last time she had one of those, she ended up blurting out something about sweating a lot and peanut butter. Which, yes, she _did_ sweat a lot as a teenager and she _does_ love peanut butter but those aren’t things to reveal when you get asked _what are your interests._

The lab she was assigned to is in the first underground level. When she gets to that level, the old lady walks out first, practically running her ass off.

The young woman never saw such a laberintic place in her life, nor so technified.

It’s truly modern, screens blinking, employees coming and going from restricted sections. She even saw someone with a fire extinguisher and a pair of fuzzy dragon slippers practically sprinting through the halls.

The prospect of a fire unnerves her a little but the possibility of wearing such comfortable and at the same time ridiculous pair of shoes is alluring and compels her to walk more tall and sure towards the place she has to report to. The sight apparently distracted her too, because in her rush she trips over the old lady of the elevator, making all she had in her hands fall

“Jesus Christ! I’m so sorry, ma’am!” Katie exclaims, even though she’s fully Jewish, _where the fuck did that expression come from._ Without missing a beat, she bends down to collect the notes scattered on the tiled ground.

“I’m really sorry. I got caught up and didn’t see you there” she apologizes again, feeling a little bit too guilty and cursing herself inside.

Her hands touch a pair of glasses and she can’t help cursing a little bit more. She practically punched down the woman’s lenses in a moment of unusual clumsiness. Still, she smiles guiltily at the old lady while handing her what’s her own.

“It’s okay, young lady” She answers. Her face is wrinkly and dark, big eyes glinting mischievously behind the glasses, an aura of ethereal youth radiating from them. “We are all in a hurry here. It’s part of the job. I was distracted by my notes anyway.”

“Where do you have to go? I can escort you.” Katie offers, even though she has to report to her own first work day and that she doesn’t have an idea of where she’s walking, even less of the place’s layout. She has twenty minutes to spare and she can ask directions anyway.

The old lady, submerged in her notes again, mutters her response absent-mindedly.

“Lab 3B” she says and then furrows her brow and looks up at Katie “There’s no need to, anyway, youngling. I’ll be too immersed in the new addition’s profiles to realise I’m with company.”

The number of the laboratory sounds familiar at first and when the woman says that last bit, it finally clicks.

“I think _I’m_ the new addition, ma’am” Katie says, showing her ID with a grin.

Professor Ryner, because who else could that be, blinks owlishly for a second, eyes going from the ID to the young scientist's face before breaking in a similar smile.

“I can’t believe I didn’t notice before, young Holt!” she exclaims, practically shoving her papers into her beanstack. “Now, tell me about your profile, please. Avoid me the nuisance that is going through another boringly redacted resume”

Katie can’t even feel offended at that. Resumes _are_ boring.

They start walking to the lab and, even though her offer was quite different, it is Ryner who escorts her, all the while showing her different equipment sets in the halls and explaining their use.

Modern engineering is a thing that, even if her field is Bioinformatic, always amazes her wholly, the old remnants of a passion well hidden in the past resurfacing like it was hers, like it was never shared, explained eagerly to her.

All the bits of information Ryner feeds her, she returns in form of personal professional data. Mentioning as a passing her natal town where she was born and raised and where she stayed until going to college at 16, two years early because she had skipped grades.

Her university formation, the different fields she explored after that, the countless cities she had lived and worked in, always moving.

She even let herself get loose a little and shared a story about the times she worked as a barista in Seattle, which made Ryner’s youthful eyes water in laughter.

It’s comfortable. Even though it’s purely professional talk, her superior shares her same kind of sharp and dry humour, the same rough understanding of the world.

The conversation gets to the unavoidable point where she’s asked about her family. Everyone in the scientific community has heard more or less of Sam and Matthew Holt's death.

It’s not the first time she’s had this talk, she’s prepared for it, she has a standard answer but that doesn’t mean the memory hurts less. She knows better than to show it, heard enough condolences, gotten enough pity stares and compliments about how young and talented her brother was, how hardworking her father was, she’s been swallowed on the foreign guilt, on the outsider’s ego, she’s had enough of condescension being spoon fed to her, making her choke in her own grief, in the utter distaste of swallowing someone else’s bile...

“Yes” she hears herself affirm “Those were my father and my brother”

Ryner doesn’t stare. She doesn’t say sorry or asks how she’s coping. She doesn’t pray for their souls or curse that night’s fire. She just blinks, face neutral, and nods.

“Okay” she just says. A beat passes. “Funny how everything is connected, isn’t it?”

Katie is debating whether she should answer or not, but then Ryner stops in front of a metallic door and passes her card through a small scanner on the side, closing the conversation before the young girl can make a decision.

“We are here”

 

* * *

 

Being an adult is a matter of avoiding small talk while you are being presented to your scattered new colleagues.

The shift hasn’t started so the different kind of scientists, interns and administratives of her lab’s unit are passing the time playing scrabble in some corner or talking or… whatever that old guy with the mustache is doing. Dancing? Killing bugs with his feet? Is it even _okay_ to jump like that in a lab with dangerous components?

Katie is swept around by Ryner, who introduces her as “Young Ms Holt”, as if the four or so years she’s behind the youngest employees aren’t visible in her face. She knows it’s visible, even though she’s way more developed at 23 than she was at 16 when she got in college, her frame is still petite, lanky and her face still round. On her worst days, she thinks of herself as a fucking tall child. But in a less funny way that John Mulaney says it.

The old guy tells her once she has, how is it? “Wrists as small as birds, young lass!” then Ryner introduces him as “Coran, our do it all man” and then he goes back to stomping in the ground. Her boss doesn’t seem the least phased by it so Katie makes a big effort to mask her amusement and confusion.

The last bits of free time Katie has, she uses them for peeking around the big… room would be an understatement. The lab consists on a few adjacent rooms connected by wide doors; some are more traditional labs per se, used for chemistry components and each with their own eyes and body shower for emergencies, others are way more complex, filled with computers and strange machines. One of them is a plain library with a couch. Even that last one is nicely equipped with bookshelves that go up to the ceiling and Katie can’t wait to have a break in which she can get a glance at them.

She’s patting the dust off one of volume’s covers when she hears Ryner’s voice calling everyone through the speakers. She calls each name and their occupation for the day. Katie waits impatiently for her name to be said.

“...And Ms Holt has orientation for the first half on the day. After lunch, she shall help Coran in his tasks” Guess that’s her duty, then. Orientation and then assistant work to know the ropes. She could have guessed as much — real work wouldn’t come until they really knew how she did things.

Reluctantly - because she would have totally stayed in that old library if it was up to her, or snooped around in the lab a little longer - Katie follows the small crowd of new employees towards what resembles a conference room.

Setting herself in a place where she can see but isn’t that close to the podium where a few suited men and coated people are standing, ready to do whatever the hell multi-international companies do in orientation. Probably talk about how _good_ their enterprise and the sweet sweet blessing of capitalism is to science. They do have to brainwash a room full of smart people to comply to their orders, after all.

Apparently, even if she’s the newbie in her lab, other sections of the building have a considerable amount of new recruits. The wide conference room takes no time in filling itself to the top and the loud murmur of people idly chatting is drowning out whatever intention the bosses have of calming everyone down.  Katie feels a little out of place, quiet and alone, but when she looks to the sides and thinks of small talk that doesn’t involve peanut butter, an audible throat is cleared from the front.

Katie flinches. Dr Slav Vedicus, the scientific head of the company, a scrawny middle aged man whose face resembles that of an owl, is holding the mic.

“Welcome, new recruits” he squeaks out. A respectful silence spreads through the room. Katie smiles a bit, feeling both intimidated and like laughing at this man with a bird-like voice. “It’s a pleasure to be in the reality where we all share a room and are not obliterated in the process…”

Katie can feel how various people’s eyebrows are raised but she isn’t surprised in the least. She was familiar with this man’s field of studies, the multiverse, a subject he evoked with passion in each of his essays.

And also one he doesn’t shut up

Because yes, this man is a straight up genius, but he rambles about the probabilities of the more trivial things. If on paper that quality was extended, in person is tiring, no edition or filter in between to cut all the possibilities he numbers in which the fly batting its wings through the room could kill him. Or the ways the mic could blow up, _with engineering explanations_ …

Would someone blame her for zoning out?

After college, irregularly scheduled jobs, years on the road, Katie has acquired the uncanny ability of falling asleep everywhere. And also has learned to recognize the signs. So, when she feels the familiar pull of sleep threatening her with blackout on the first day of the job, she gets hold of all her willpower to do something else.

Observing her surroundings was not a thing she excelled at when she was young. She easily got swept up by facts, by ideas, her own head spinning. The duty of paying attention was left to others to attend, to help her though, to snap her out. But observing her surroundings - she discovered after time - was a matter of survival and an excellent way to satiate that curiosity throbbing inside her all the time.

Katie looks around. This person over here is picking at their nose. That girl is nodding seriously at the Doctor but her slow breathing indicates how hard  she is fighting to not fall asleep. A couple rows in front of her…

No.

It can’t be.

It just _can't be_. Not here. Not now.

Maybe it’s the dark skin, maybe it’s the wide back, the combination of a square and round frame, maybe it’s the fact that memories are so rooted in the core of her being, searching tirelessly for the small ounce of sunlight that would make them bloom. And Pidge has stayed buried in the dark for so long, Katie’s nails full of dirt are the sole witness, digging the tomb further and further, until her fingers get numb from the cold. Because earth is colder the more you dig, indifferent of its own warm, pumping magma heart.

Maybe it’s the fact some part of her wanted to go back. Maybe a sign of the destiny to stop running, maybe she just wanted to see him again, without any consequences.

Maybe… maybe… _maybe_

 

* * *

 

_June, 2012_

 

“Are you sure you are going to be okay?” Keith asks, while Pidge shoves the last of the suitcases on the back of the car and cleans the sweat off her face. She envies Keith’s cap for a quick second until she remembers, he’s going somewhere way hotter than their little town.

“I don’t think my response would change your big plans in _Cuba,_ dude” she jokes, trying to not sound bitter. Because she isn’t, she really isn’t. Keith’s furrowed brow doesn’t falter in the least.

“But that doesn’t mean I can’t check up on you. Be there, you know. There’s texting and cameras and Skype…” he trails off awkwardly but sure of himself. Even though she feels like answering sharply, she ultimately decides of letting him off the hook. Of all the people, Keith’s the last to give her some half-assed pity because he’s had them all, the stares and the handkerchiefs randomly handed, the whispers, the silences…

She shakes herself off. It’s too sunny of a day for this.

“What I would expect is an update of _your romantic status._ ” she mocks him, grinning. Her friend, who was trying to get the straps of his backpack right, immediately flushes.

“I don’t know what you mean” he blatantly lies. He’s biting his tongue and avoiding her teasing gaze, which means he’s at least aware of his own foolishness. At least he knows. Pidge’s grin widens.

“C’mon, Keith, after Lance used half of his savings and _his own grandmother’s home_ to get Shiro and you a nice vacation after…” she refrains herself from saying it. Keith notices immediately and looks at her in the eye for the first time “You just can’t _not_ ask him out” she finishes as if nothing has happened. He leaves her be.

“It’s…” Keith’s flushed cheeks could be easily mistaken by sunburn, both of them are _victims_ of the sun every time they do as much as stand under it. But Pidge knows better and she can practically see the gears in his head turning frantically, his heart racing, his anxiety spiking. “It’s complicated” he just states.

“How? Boy just had a hell of a nice gesture towards you and your brother. An _expensive_ gesture. What doubt do you have that he cares about you?” If there’s something she can’t bare at her 16 years of age, is the straight up denial of facts. Or, well, not that straight. Ha. Hunk would have a feast with that joke.

“The intention was towards Shiro’s recovery, Pidge. And I don’t want…” Keith’s always been someone who doesn’t get along with words. He’s action, impulse, pure emotion. Smart as they come, she admits, but when he has to sit down and reflect, he gets clouded. “I don’t want to come across like that’s the reason.”

Pidge looks at him in surprise, completely taken aback. But she leaves him to continue. He looks unsure, vulnerable. Flashes of the past months pass before her eyes and she understands, for a brief second, how tired her best friend is too. And how that’s taking a toll on his self esteem.

“Wouldn’t I come across like I’m whoring myself out?”  He mutters, looking afar again. To her own shock, Pidge snorts. He looks in her direction, indignated disbelief painting his features.

“Yes, Keith, _you ,_ virgin at eighteen and pining for Lance since you were twelve, would look like it” She sarcastically states, feeling pride bloom in her chest when Keith’s doubts disappear to be replaced by a shy smile. “He knows you better, dude. And trust me, it would be the peak of romance for him if you asked him out in Varadero beach, under the sunset or some shit”

Keith’s little smile turns into a fond expression.

“It would, wouldn’t it?” And both of them are remembering now, she knows, how Lance fantasizes about being  wooed, how he yearns for someone else caring as much for him as he cares for everyone else. Her friend is a goof, yes, and a romantic sap but he has a heart of gold. She will miss him this summer.

“I guess I have to pick up Shiro and get going” Keith softly states.

She will miss all of them.

“Are you sure you are going to be okay?” the question is repeated again, way lower than the first time, way more meaningful.

She doesn’t answer. She really doesn’t know, does she? What has “okay” come to?

“If reaching out to us is too difficult…” They have lived across the street from each other for so long, they know each other’s silences by now “ _Katie,_ listen to me. You have Hunk.”

 _Hunk_ . And that’s an anchor — she refuses to call what’s dead, _hope_ — that blossoms inside her chest. Wonderful Hunk, fellow nerd, a rock by everyone’s side, with his hugs and his lack of condescence whatsoever. With his simple, ethereal niceness and his sharp, quick intelligence.

“I do” she repeats, and smiles up at him.

As she waves out, a few minutes later, to the car leaving. As it’s only her, alone on the sidewalk, in an empty street, left with a half empty house and no place across to seek refuge. As she smiles, feeling the gut wrenching fear of waving forever (it’s always present these days, it’s always beating along with her heart). As she stands, for the first time in the day, she’s actually excited for the summer.

 

* * *

 

_September, 2018_

 

Being an adult is a matter of not breaking down after confusing a coworker for someone that you left well behind in the past.

It wasn’t him. Of course it wasn’t. Hunk — Keith had told her on that distant phone call a few months ago before she changed numbers — was working in a big enterprise on the other side of the country.

It wasn’t him. Of course it wasn’t. His profile, turned around while chatting with his colleague beside him, was extremely different. A sharp, rect nose instead of round and soft. A square, hardened face instead of round cheeks and a permanent smile.

It’s not him. It never was — Katie repeats to herself after she leaves orientation and heads back to work in the lab with Coran.  She should be glad, she should be relieved that memories are memories, that they are still buried somewhere states away from here.

Why is she so disappointed?

Katie’s not a fool. She knows she misses it. She misses him. But everything was so complicated back then, so painful and raw, so wonderfully warm.

That summer was a soap bubble, one she left getting bigger and bigger until it finally popped. And there is no shattering in something so transparent and beautiful, just the droplets that fall on the ground, on her arms, on her cheeks. Just the memory that something once beautiful existed. And the notion that it exists no more.

There’s no getting back there, trying to would be forcing a situation. And what would she do? Call out of nowhere, as someone he probably wrote off as a childhood friend he lost all contact with? She can barely hold a decent, heartfelt conversation with Keith and Lance, for god’s sake.

She misses them too.

Helping Coran, Katie notices once she’s in deep work with the man, is trying to keep up and not die in the process. He has crazy theoretical ideas that, when put in practice, turn out to be brilliant. Apparently her lab is in charge of some bigger project regarding sustainable energy. And Coran?

“...I’m saying, young lass, I’m sure we can get eolic and solar energy from the bare ground in a single device!” Katie actually smiles at that. He’s rambling about the big goods and not about the fact they are doing paperwork for another lab’s engineering work.

“Why exactly are we in charge of this?” She asks, genuinely curious. In college, she was taught that the reports are made by the actual people who are making the discoveries.

“This is a joint project I have with my engineer buddy!” He answers chippery, tweaking his moustache. “He had a sick absence today, so I want to wrap up the report so we can continue when he comes back. You’ll meet him soon, he’s a great fella!”

Katie laughs a little under her breath. If this was anyone else, she’d think they are trying to sell the poor guy to her or something. Since it’s Coran, that’s probably how he talks about people in general. Like a toothpaste commercial.

Huh, a toothpaste commercial with a moustache-ed redhead _would_ work. She would buy the brand, even ironically.

“Now, young Katie, let’s go again. Where did we leave it…?”

 

* * *

 

Being an adult is a matter of coming home after a fairly good work day and not worsening it by checking the box under your bed. It’s been a week since Katie moved in and boxes of all kinds are still stacking around in her two room apartment. She barely has a couch, a bed and a few seats to take breakfast on the counter but it’s quite the difference from the one-room apartments and the motel rooms she used to rent. It’s all scrappy and messy. But, even if she rents it, is _hers._

Stability is something she’s lacked in such a long time, she even doubts it’ll ever be back in her life.  But this, this strange new normal, with a new job and the desire to _flee_ buried beneath her tired legs, scattered across roads and places behind, this is similar.

Between all the messy boxes, there’s one she unpacked first. One she’s carried for six years and every time kept in a safe spot. If it weren't reserved to be opened only in her weakest moments, she wouldn’t have hesitated to run to it now, to let it all out, Pandora’s box cursed contents be damned

She’s not going to open it. She’s not. It was such a good day, except for, well, that moment… but it was her own mind playing tricks. There are no excuses to…

Maybe she doesn’t have to fully open it.

No. _No_.

She’s hungry, she’s going to distract herself, she’s going to try and think of something else, whatever it is.

And she actually achieves that. For a couple hours, unpacking, making some food, calling her mom (briefly, tentatively), unpacking more.

Until she has no option but to get into her bedroom to set the new lamp and the videogame console. And the thought comes to her, fast, untameable.

_In 2012 we didn’t have an XBOX_

It’s so dumb. So simple.

But as Pandora’s box, it opens the floodgates of hell.

Before she realizes, she’s desperately kneeling, reaching for the familiar cardboard feeling in her fingertips, blindly grabbing the cover of the box, hardly but carefully setting it away. Almost without thinking or with her thoughts racing, her hands graze the paper.

She’s just going to grab the envelope.

She’s not going to open it.

She hasn’t opened it once in six years.

Reflexively, as it was a sport she masterfully crafted with the years (which is crazy, her forte was never sports, the most physical activity was climbing and within closed walls) Katie turns the letter around.

In the back, over a familiar address, a familiar town, a familiar state, the letter still conserves that eternal rounded, clear manuscript.

 

_Hunk Garrett_

 

* * *

 

_June, 2012_

 

“... I just can’t understand how Keith still doubts Lance’s affection for him after he basically _gifted_ them a _vacation_ with his own money. And we are talking, fast food employee money. Lance _hated_ that job.” Pidge’s saying between bites of her cookie. It’s the third day of summer — the first since Keith, Lance and Shiro left — and apparently her hobbies reduce to sitting on Hunk’s garage counter while eating his baked goods. It’s good, if not kind of boring.

Hunk, head immersed in the front of the car, makes a small noncommittal sound.

“Hunk, you sound like a robot” With that, he actually emerges. All round cheeks, grease and a dimpled smile, she looks at her in disbelief while rubbing some sweat out of his forehead. His hair’s getting longer - Pidge notes- long enough to wrap it in a small bun.

“I’m actually listening to you” he retorts, paying no mind to the robot comment (even if it did make him react, _ha_ ) “And yes, Lance despised that job. He always complained about the greasy food and his skin” he clicks his tongue against his teeth, laughing softly. “Pass me the wrench. But, Pidge, I know they are obnoxious but _let them be_. It’s a long vacation, they should come around.” She hands him the tool. “eventually” he adds as an afterthought.

“I know, I know, they should” she repeats flatly. Hunk emerges again to squint at her.

“Pass me the oil. Hey, what about the program you were designing? Is that done?” he asks. She can’t help but groan at that.

“I’m actually done and kind of blocked in terms of programming” she looks elsewhere, ashamed. Because in the sixteen years of her life, she’s never had such thing as a _block_. She was always ready to work, always with some new idea or project.

“That’s okay…” Hunk hums. He’s got a sass that usually goes for miles but he doesn’t tease this time. For a second, she worries if pity has something to do with it. No. He’s direct. He wouldn’t, just, _wouldn’t just_...

“Wanna help me with this?” He asks then. Pidge perks up.

“Isn’t this, like, your Ma’s car?” she checks. Hunk’s ma is _very_ protective toward her van and Pidge is known for tinkering and playing around with her work.

“She’s actually planning on gifting it to me.” He says, smiling happily “For, you know, college” College. Yes. It’s the last summer before college, their last summer. Even her, two years younger but in their same class, is graduated from high school. It’s surreal to think of, so she just changes the subject and gets herself to poke and prod the van’s insides along with Hunk.

“And what’s the plan for the summer?” she throws it out, as nonchalant as she can muster.

“Uh…” he grabs the wrench and disappears under the car again “I honestly don’t know. What are you up to? What should we do?”

Pidge grins, thankful he included her in his summer plans.

“Not this boredom, that’s for sure” she teases. He appears again, looking offended.

“Hey! You love this boredom! _Team Punk,_ remember?” She laughs it off and dodges the greased rug he throws at her. Yes, Team Punk, the name of their  - as Lance calls it - two person nerd group. They are so used to each other’s presence in the lab, in class, in their friend group...

“I love being part of Team Punk” Pidge earnestly affirms. And it’s the truth “But, to be honest, I don’t want to be stranded inside this summer. It makes me feel… caged”

A serious silence spreads through the room. She can feel herself tensing, feel the words that shouldn’t have been such a big deal stretching the time in between.

“Okay” Hunk’s voice is low, earnest, from under the back. It’s okay, he says. It’s okay. But also: He’s on board. He’s not pressing. He’ll be by her side. “Let’s do this”

“Are you sure?” she double checks. He’s her friend, yes, but he also has his own boundaries. All her doubts are cleared when he emerges from the car again, grinning mischievously and states, looking at her right in the eye:

“Oh, trust me. I’ll tell you the _second_ I’m not sure” and, damn, if she knew a thing about her friend, he would, _loudly_.

“Okay” Pidge repeats, grinning back.

_Okay._

 

* * *

 

_September, 2018_

 

Walking on heels to work. Take two.

Katie knows what elevator to take now and the map in her head functions well enough to get to the lab without asking indications.

As every day after opening that damn box, she’s exhausted. She tinkered all night trying to dissipate the haunting memories, vanish them, shove them under the bed, where they belonged. At least this time she didn’t call her mother crying, or didn’t try to text an apology to Keith for withering away.

She was tired, both physically for pacing around and the lack of sleep, and emotionally. Thankfully, Katie’s determination to not open the letter prevailed.

Would the memories go away someday? Would she ever learn how to get past it?

Coran’s bright smile when she opened the door was a relief to her tired mind. He’s got the radio on today, an old song playing softly. The high music and the enthusiastic company are honestly exactly what she needed . It reminded her of Lance’s one man concerts in the car after school. She shoos the comparison away, trying to stay focused. A few other colleagues are strolling through the lab behind Coran, who stumbles over his own feet before getting to her.

“Good morning, young lass! Are you ready for a good ol’ day of work?”

She’s opening her mouth to affirm that yes, that’s exactly what she came for, when he interrupts her.

“Okay, number five, I need to introduce you to someone! Remember the engineer I told you about?” He turns around to call someone in between the crowd of scientists and engineers coming and going.

It all happens in a second.

“Ms. Holt, let me introduce you to Mr. Garrett”

No.

The face comes closer but it feels blurry, like watching from behind the mirror, like a dream that’s stayed behind her eyelids, like the mist after a heavy rain. Out of reality, her mind picks up round cheeks, a face shape, no longer juvenile but the same softness, the same dark skin, the same eyes, wide in shock.

Dubious steps.

_No._

“Hello, Pidge” Hunk says, smiling apologetically, like it was a casual encounter after a few busy days, not six years of radio silence, of distance and boxes and _nothing_ and _everything_ at the same time.

Don't write the horrors of war, some old writing advice says.

But how else could Katie describe this moment?


	2. beneath the ruins

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How do you pick yourself up after a sism?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a few months but here you go, the second chapter! Hope you enjoy!  
>  **BIG THANKS TO BO, WHO HELPED WITH THIS CHAP AND BETA'ED A BIG CHUNK!!!**

 

_June, 2012_

 

House seems empty.

Pidge seriously shouldn’t be surprised at the dimmed lights, shouldn’t blink twice at the ghostly, veiled atmosphere. The curtains are pulled, covering whatever trace of sunlight that could want to go through. The salon is as silent as always, only inhabited by a heavy layer of dust she doesn’t even want to touch. Shadows, she’s learned in this past few months, are an intricate map, reality and illusion merging back and forth, pushing and pulling.

If she closes her eyes, she can see everything exactly how it used to be.

When she opens them, all past her eyelids is coated in grey.

Her footsteps sound so heavy in the main floor, like they want everything to wake up, the memories, the laughter, the sunlight, beating hard as a pulse against the ground, trying to reach underneath, wake everything up, even the dead.

She passes Colleen by the kitchen, silently preparing breakfast. It’s a ghost of what she used to be, an hurricane behind a shattered mirror. Pidge avoids her. She doesn’t want another round of weak smiles, of encouragements, she wants some peace and quiet in her room, she wants to open her eyes and not feel like she’s choking, like she’s landed in a stranger’s bed, in a foreign life, far far away from her reach.

Pidge wants her mom.

Pidge wants her dad.

Pidge wants _Matt_.

Is it possible to want so much? To being torn apart from inside, like her heart is beneath the surface, still pumping, still craving for oxygen that it lost, crying out for the soil to _grow_ again?

Each desire opens a floodgate, lands her in the center of the wilderness that could be but quite isn’t. Every time she lets herself think of it, every time she even lets herself be out of reach, out of control, everything comes pushing back and throwing her against the thorns. It’d be so easy to let it all out, to start a fit, to cry until finally she gets what she wants, until finally she can have it everything back, her brother and her dad and a happy mother and a bright house and a dog all over again, enveloping her like a hug, never letting her go, never leaving her, never…

It will never happen.

So she pushes back the tears, the thoughts and the desires. She swallows down her heart. She digs further down, the first traces of a grave.

Pidge’s steps can barely be heard when she walks to her room.

* * *

 

_September 2018_

 

Katie can hear her own heartbeat.

Nothing in this reality should be possible. Not the absent, awkward smile that ornaments Hunk’s face, not the expectant look in Coran’s, not the fact this is _happening_ at all.

Anticlimactically , Coran’s radio is playing Nicki Minaj.  Hunk’s eyes shift for a second to the music in recognition. He’s frozen in place, as cautious as possible, the attitude she would connect to being around a wild animal, a stranger pouring their lungs out in the sidewalk. Not Katie. Never in her life did Katie think she’d see that look in Hunk’s face, never directed at her.

And when their eyes lock, she can’t bear it. Vulnerability. Warmth. Curious innocence. Reproach. Yearning

Yearning.

No.

Not now, not never. Yearning is bad. Missing is a dead end. Missing is something that should never happen, that she can’t bear to experience.

She has to get the fuck away, she has to get out, she has to _run._

The chorus of _Spaceships_ sparks a broken record of a memory. Her mind spins between reality, the lab, Hunk’s eyes on her and the front of a car, the highway ahead, sunshine in her face, a smile she’ll never return to.

It’s a rush, adrenaline, the feeling that if she doesn’t do _something_ , her own body will betray her, will throw her into her old friend’s embrace. If the past hugs her - she knows - there’s no going back. She worked too damn hard to be okay again, to not break down at the smallest sight of her old life coming back to her.

She’s breaking.

She’s running away.

"Pidge! Pidge wait!" Hunk is immediately after her, hot on her heels. She should have seen it coming. Did she expect him to? How much of the Hunk she once knew is in this grown man?

“Pidge!”

It’s a rush. It’s adrenaline. It’s the sensation of the wilderness within her, growing towards sunlight, roots deep down on the ground. Even if she wants to run away, to grow and leave everything behind, she wants to stay. She can’t reject her own roots.

“Pidge, _please_!”  

She stops.

"My name's Katie" She hears herself say. Her mind is reeling. Crashing down. Hunk almost stumbles against her back. His sigh is audible. Is he relieved? Is he scared? What’s left? What even is she refusing to face?

"Okay”  Hunk breathes deeply. He’s close but he’s not touching her. Katie doesn’t know if she should be glad for it, everything _itches_ “Just, wait, please. I just want to talk with you"

"I think you are mistaking me for someone else" How can her own voice sound so detached? She’s underground, choking up in her own obvious lies.

Silence.

"I remember you being smarter than that" Hunk mutters dryly.

"And I remember you being actually nice and respecting when someone wants to be left alone" Katie snaps, turning around to face him. Hunk’s eyes widen and he throws his arms up.

"I did! For six years!" he says loudly, clearly frustrated.

"And what, time's due now? Are you stalking me?" She’s fuming, she’s fuming she’s _fuming_

Hunk takes a step back.

“What!?”  He looks shocked, eyes wide, mouth agape. He’s been poisoned, paralysis overtaking him, blood freezing, breath catching “ _No_. What are you talking about, Pi-Katie? I've been working here for three months”

He’s been poisoned.

"Well, you _sure_ weren't all that surprised to see me"

And she’s the venom.

"Because Coran mentioned me a Ms. Holt this morning when I got to work!" He snaps, exasperated. His chest is rising up and down quickly. She refuses to look at his face, refuses to read whatever feeling is dimming Hunk’s eyes "And how do I know it wasn't you pulling intel, _hacker_?"

He almost hisses the last word, pulling a weight that sends Katie into silence.

"Will you tell me you got away from that too?"

She refuses to answer.

Silence.

Hunk’s voice breaks it, way more calm than before. It’s still the voice of someone who’s lost in the wilderness, feelings and thoughts tangling themselves within the jungle, feet wounded from the endless walk and eyelids veiled with mist and dirt. It’s a voice Pidge wants to hold on to. It’s a voice Katie understands.

"Look, I'm not here to fight. I don't even know why I'm fighting! I don't know what's going _on_ ! I came to work and you are suddenly here, after six years of nothing. after no answers to my letters or my calls, you’re insisting I call you by your birth name and with an undercut and heels! I'm _freaking out_!" His voice turns slightly high pitched and, when Katie steals a glance, she can see how distressed he is. Hunk lets out a deep breath, trying to calm down "I'm sorry. I always imagined our next talk to be nicer."

Is this what she produces? Is this the trail of poison she leaves behind? Wilderness is nothing but a beautiful thing to get lost in, but when the explorer dies, what more is left than a rotting corpse and a lost soul? What more is  there for Hunk with her around than an anxiety ridden body and distressed eyes?

If she looks at her reflection in his eyes, what is Katie going to see?

What is really left of Pidge?

"There's nothing to talk about, Mr. Garrett"

It pains her, it tears her apart, the formality tastes heavy on her tongue. It's venom. She's the snake.

Hunk is still paralysed when she steps away from him and heads back to the lab.

Even though every part of her being _itches_ to, Katie doesn’t look back, never once glances at his face, never appreciates how his hair has grow or his skin has gained new freckles.

She doesn’t want to face what she has become.

Katie’s steps can barely be heard when she walks to the lab.

 

* * *

 

_June 2012_

 

Night is dim.

She’s been on the computer all day and the inside of her eyes ache, multicolored, neon. The soft glow of the screen lightens her room and Pidge feels like - if she stares enough - she’ll find faces in between the shadows.

But that’s impossible. All the portraits are looking down.

Heat sticks to her skin and everything feels oily, disgusting, dirty. She should have taken a shower. For some reason, she still doesn’t feel like doing that.

Enough.

Enough.

This is dumb! This is downright pathetic! She needs to get her shit together! What’s the point of laying around in bed, sulking? What’s the point of staying inside, feeling her lungs ache? What’s the point of being trapped in the asphyxiating notion of uncertainty? What’s the need of calculating probability after probability for everything to be thrown away in the darkest corner of the room? She needs to do something, anything! She needs...she needs…

She needs some air.

So she runs away

 

* * *

 

_September 2018_

 

Running away seems to be Katie’s specialty — or at least, that’s the thought that keeps throbbing inside of her head while, back at her tiny apartment, she piles clothes and items inside of her suitcase.

Boxes are still half made for the move, walls entirely naked but for a couple space posters.

That’s all she has to undo to get on the road again.

Hunk came back to the lab, of course, and the whole shift, both of them ignored the odd looks Coran was giving them. It wasn’t easy at first, trying to work without her attention shifting to the center of the room. Because Hunk… Hunk seemed to be avoiding her. And Katie asked for this. She should have been relieved.

Instead, she was disappointed.

In what? The fact he gave up so quickly? The fact that nothing was magically solved?

She shakes her head to scare the thoughts away and throws a pile of notebooks in a box that she untapped only yesterday.

Focus. Focus. _Focus_.

She has to run. She has to get out of here.

Mentally, she checks the list she’s already worked through a thousand times, in different cities, in different times. First, pack. Second, call the landlord and ask for a refund on what she used on the month. If the landlord denies, it’s okay, but try to scrap that money, it always means more gas or food. Third, call work and quit. Fourth, start driving toward one of the locations you marked in google maps beforehand. Fifth, look for job offers and an apartment deal. It doesn’t matter what or where. It doesn’t matter that she’s too qualified for it. It _doesn’t matter_ just run just do it _just—_

The phone rings.

Logically, she shouldn’t take it. She should keep going with her plan. No interruptions.

On the other hand, she’s tired. Her limbs ache and she _has_ a window for a break. She’s going to keep going. But she’s _tired_ and damn, she wants to know who the fuck is calling. Curse her existence for being curious.

She picks up.

“Katie?” a voice says.

She freezes.

“Katie? Are you there?” the voice repeats and she can almost see it. That kind face, blurred by scars across pale skin. The firm hand on her shoulder. The composed appearance. The goofy attitude when let loose. The similarities shared with Matt.

“Katie, please, answer”

_Shiro._

She takes a deep breath.

“I’m here” she says and it’s quiet, small. And she can feel the friendly, worried smile on the other end.

“It’s been a while”

“Yes.” Katie answers. _Since we threw the funeral for Matt and Dad_ . _Since you were released from the hospital._ She has talked with Keith, with Lance, with her mother. But she has purposefully avoided Shiro’s calls all she could.She bites her lip, tries to fake some normalcy, tries to keep composed as if she isn’t throwing all her life in a bag right now “What’s up?”

Shiro lets out a surprised laugh.

“I don’t know, to be honest”  he admits and Katie would be surprised of how he rolls along but this is _Shiro_ , familiar and comfortable. Someone who, even while weirded out, adapts and recicles “There’s kind of a lot going on right now”

 _Tell me about it, buddy_ , she thinks. Instead, she says “Work stuff?”

“Yes. Work stuff but also…” he clicks his tongue. There are sounds in the background and she briefly wonders if he’s making dinner “This is what I’m actually calling for”

Katie makes an inquisitive noise, chest tightening a little. She’s worried. Did Hunk call him? Did Shiro predict her intention of running away again?

“Do you have any old pictures?”  he asks. She breathes out, relieved. A little nervous laugh threatens to escape but she closes her mouth to prevent it. She still smiles, though.

“Old pictures?”  She retorts, a little amused. “Are you starting a museum, Shiro?”  

“Very funny” He nags, voice serious but she knows him enough to notice the lilt of amusement. He’s relieved too. “But seriously. Do you have any pictures from your high school years you could scan and send to me?”

Her mind shifts to the box under her bed, still unpacked.

“I don’t know” she lies. “I might. What for?”

Shiro laughs quietly on the other end.

“If everything goes accordingly, you’ll see very soon!”  he says mysteriously. And, for a brief second, in this dramatic attitude, he reminds her of Matt. It’s a heart stopping notion and Katie feels heavy all out of sudden, out of breath, _tired_.

“I have to go, Shiro” she quickly says. _She has to hang up. “_ I’ll see if I find anything”

“Oh— “ he sounds disappointed but immediately recomposes “It’s okay”

“Thanks for calling” she mutters and means it.

Shiro’s smile can be heard from the other side of the line.

“Thanks for picking up” he says, and she knows he means it as well. There’s a lilt of worry in his voice when he asks “And, Katie?”

“Yes?”

“Please don’t stay out of the loop”

It should have felt like a nag. She should have felt guilty.

Instead, she gifts the empty space a tired smile.

“I will try” and it’s familiar, as a brother checking on you once lights are off, like a parent slipping into the room at midnight to confiscate your screens in favor of some sleep. Like a pillow fort.

She stays there, slumped on the floor, long after the line goes dead.

Her suitcases stay half full, the boxes untapped. Katie doesn’t call the landlord, doesn’t call her work, doesn’t check the gas in her car.

For the first time in six years, Katie doesn’t feel like running away.

She’s tired.

 

* * *

 

 

 _J_ _une, 2012_

 

Hunk lives in the first floor.

This is not a new fact, she’s known the guy since she was 10, when he moved a few blocks down Southern Lane St., a pudgy child too shy to make friends but still eager to turn toy trucks inside out in the middle of the sidewalk. That’s how she met him first, two pigtails in her hair, the last of her milk teeth loose, she sat in front of this older boy and asked what was he doing.

They tore the truck apart in a matter of minutes.

Hunk’s ma wasn’t that happy. Apparently, it had been an uncle’s gift. His mom, on the other hand, had to go to the bathroom so she wouldn’t laugh in front of the children, who still heard her cackles from the front yard. Said uncle was an homophobic asshole.

It was an instant friendship. Through him she met Lance — scrawny and small, a force to be reckoned with. And she introduced them to Keith, her long life friend, who, shyly at first but with a determination twice his size, fit in as the last piece of their small but loving friend group.

They were inseparable. Until, well, this summer. It’s the first time the group isn’t whole and to be honest, Pidge kind of misses it. Everything used to be so simple, so delicate. No heartache. No empty homes.

She’s taken back from reminiscing by the sight of Hunk’s window wide open. It’s the middle night and that can only mean one thing — he’s as restless as she is.

Grinning — and feeling only a little guilty for it — she grabs a small stone from the ground and throws it. Pidge watches the boulder land inside and hears the precise instant it hits the room’s floor. Not even five seconds later, Hunk is facing her. Her smile only gets wider when he sees him, hair in disarray, eyes tired and a serious expression.

“Want to go stargazing?”  she asks. His mouth twitches but he furrows his brow.

“What the fuck, Pidge” he mutters, but neither his face or his voice note any surprise.

“We are going stargazing!”  she tries again. Hunk takes a total of five seconds of process it and then he’s sighing, his mouth twitching and she can’t see his expression clear from down here and the shadows make it even more difficult but she knows, she knows in the bottom of her gut —- he’s on board.

It’s not long until he’s there, in front of her and maybe it’s the night whispering in her ear, haunting her but she can’t help but notice how much taller he is. Hunk has always been bigger, hovering above her by a considerable amount but — between the shadows, half of his face alight by a soft glow — he looks almost _regal_.

He squints down at her and she shifts uncomfortably, suddenly self conscious of her undone hair, covered in sweat, a dirty tank top hanging from her small frame. Why does she care so much, anyway? It’s just Hunk and she _did_ just run away from her house, after days being holed in her room.

He smiles.

Pidge has seen him smile a countless times. It’s usually big, boisterous, followed by laughter. It shakes the earth from it’s very core like an earthquake, the sound startling his surroundings. And he closes his eyes, careless of the effects, deeply immersed in his own joy, that same one he’s gifting those around him. Because his laughter is contagious and it spreads, a force to be reckoned with. Because after the tremor, nothing is the same ever again.  

Hunk smiles and, this time, it’s small.

Uncharastically silent, no deep laughter to follow it through, no wide grin, not a trace of what she’s used to see, used to hear.

But Hunk smiles.

And it’s small, but, _oh_ , no less intense.

It seems like tonight every single detail is taking her aback.

Hunk smiles and _it’s small_ , but his eyes are wrinkling at the corners and he seems so calm, so relaxed, so _at ease_ with Pidge that she feels that _maybe_ , she actually feel asleep and everything is a dream conjured by her tired mind snoozing back in her room’s floor, trying to escape from the portraits without face, from the deafening silence, looking for shadows that don’t swallow her.

Pidge smiles back, chest tight. Because, even if it’s not as wide, it’s still as contagious, shaking the very core of her being.

“Where to?”  Hunk whispers and it should break the spell, everything should come crashing down, she should wake up of this weird dream but his voice just draws her in more and more.

She clears her throat. _Get a grip, Pidge._

“The hill” she simply says. Her friend’s eyes widen, surprised. It has been a while since they went there, exactly the night before the…

_Not there either, Pidge_

“Want me to get back in and bring a snack?”  he asks, smiling again and the fondness of his tone turns her over, crashes onto her and she should really, really get a grip. This is Hunk.

“You remember?”  She asks, voice thin, low, surprised. She always used to get hungry while stargazing and he slowly got to the habit of bringing her food.

“Of course” he answers and not even a blink has passed and he did exactly that, coming back with a bag of chips, a thermos under his arm and a small tupper.

The path to the hill, _their_ hill isn’t especially complicated, nor long. Its location doesn’t arise from a fae circle, nor a map through a labyrinth cave is needed. There’s nothing short of particular or peculiar but it’s theirs, it theirs and it’s been that for so long already — small kids looking for a hide and seek spot turned into the perfect spot to sightseeing.  

Through the years, it has been everything for Pidge. A place to reclude when her head was too much. A place where allergies didn’t bother and bugs weren’t as persistent. A place to be comforted when a classmate mocked her. Or to comfort Hunk after his first heartbreak. A place where they could be just Hunk and Pidge, no matter what.

The hill lacked any special property on itself. But, for them, it was magical.

Tonight isn’t any different.

Night is dim but this time, the mild darkness is comfortable, a coat that wraps the grass and the few fallen trees in a starry embrace. The heat isn’t all that unbearable now, a gentle breeze wavering Hunk’s hair, unkept and without his signature bandana. For a second, she thinks she feels goosebumps.

Mechanically, out of habit and a sync perfected by years, they sit on the grass and Hunk keeps the provisions besides them. They are not needed yet.

Everything is silent.

For a brief second, Pidge panics — thinks of the house, its empty words and quiet broken promises. Everything is silent and she can almost see it, a dark muddled substance spreading slowly and taking over every corner of her life.

“What are you afraid about over there?”  Hunk says, startling her. He’s not looking at her, hasn’t laid down to stargaze as they usually do. Instead, he’s staring at the horizon, face oddly calm. Pidge can’t help but stutter, confused.

“What- what…?”  She recovers quickly and lets out a nervous laughter before asking “What do you mean by that?”  

Hunk isn’t fooled.

“C’mon, Pidge. I know fear. And you are panicking over something” It doesn’t sound accusing. He’s just stating a truth. And then “You can share. I know you are not used to fear so it’s probably freaking you out, but…”

He turns his face to her and he’s smiling, he’s smiling small and

“I can help.”  his hand wanders off a bit, from the grass besides Pidge to his chin, where he strokes it thoughtfully “Since, y’know, I have experience on it and all that”

“I…”

Her face must have shown something, anything because Hunk seems taken aback.

“Eh, uh. I will talk then, okay?”  he asks, softly, eyes searching through her face for an answer

She nods.

“I know you are not used to fear and you are most probably shoving it back but let it… let it just happen. You can’t control everything. Let it out”

Pidge bites her lip.

“It’s a little dumb” she mutters. Hunk’s eyes flicker and then he’s smiling again, wide and sincere.

“I refused to go to the pool last summer because the alligator inflatable that all kids had freaked me out” he states, looking right through Pidge’s eyes, grin getting wider.

And he says it so simply, so confidently that she can’t help but burst in bubbly, unexpected laughter. So she decides to trust, she decides to lie down in the grass, decides to focus on the foreign feeling of nature against her skin and watch from below how the breeze ruffles Hunk’s bangs.

“God’s sake” she mutters off handedly. The small bout of panic is still there, rooted in the inside of her core but the silence has now vanished in the air. She feels she can breathe.

“Don’t call the name of the lord in vain” Hunk reproaches, but there’s no bite of his tone. For a second, it looks like he’s going to add something more. Instead, he just lies down, lets himself fall next to Pidge.

Some small part of her whispers _he’s_ letting himself trust as well.

They are side by side now, lying on the grass. If she dares to look up, she’ll see the open sky above her, infinite, complex in a way that can only be simplified.

So, what’s another fear in the vast strangeness of things?

“Hunk?”  she calls softly, eyes focused on a small cloud. Against the starry night, it looks grey, faded, almost forgotten.

“Yes?”

“Have you ever been... scared... about losing yourself?”  And while it’s a whisper, Pidge almost feels like she’s shouting it for the whole town to hear.

Silence stretches.

“I am scared of many, many things...” Hunk’s voice wanders off with the breeze “But I don’t think I’ve ever thought about that”

Silence again.

He decides to speak again.

“I don’t know if it’s up to your religion or not. But we all have an essence, right? And that shouldn’t change, no matter what happens”

Pidge furrows her nose, but doesn’t answer.

“Is this about…?”  Hunk asks slowly and it may not be specific but she knows exactly what is he talking about.

“No” she interrupts sharply. The message comes across. _Please_ , _I don’t want to talk about it_

She doesn’t even want to think about it so she tries to think of something else, pierces her eyes on the North Pole star, the one that shines the brightest and tries to calculate how many miles away it is.

“Pidge”

Hunk’s voice breaks the count. And, suddenly, he’s sitting up and leaning over her, brown skin half lit by the half moon,dark eyes staring fiercely right at her.

What can she do except stare back, completely taken aback?

“You are Pidge. You will _always_ be Pidge.”  Hunk says from above her, face close, brow furrowed in deep, caring concentration and she can feel the earth shaking, she can feel the sound of his words tearing it all down down _down_ “Never doubt that, okay?”

After the tremor, nothing is the same ever again.  

 

* * *

 

_September 2018_

 

To record for posterity, Katie never meant to walk down this halls, not after Hunk’s sudden intrusion n the perfectly detailed puzzle of her plans.

To record for posterity, this is exactly what she’s doing.

Her heels are clicking against the tiled floor and the sound should upset her, so noticeable between the silent murmur, but somehow it comforts her, gives her something to focus on, like a clock ticking.

She catches the elevator just in time. There’s no Dr. Ryner to calm her down with a reassuring smile this time around. She briefly wonders if her superior already arrived to the lab. Today’s schedule should set Katie to work again for Coran’s projects.  

And, well, Hunk.

She has decided, after lots of dwelling on the subject — she’s going to ignore him. She’s going to keep going as if nothing happened. She’s going to start afresh just the way she wanted to. How difficult could that even be? Hunk already wasn’t talking to her after their discussion.  

She knows she could just pack up and leave it. But this time, somehow, running away isn’t as easy as it used to.

When she arrives to the lab, Coran is nowhere to be seen.

Katie does a double take. Her coworkers are scattered around, coming and going without much care of their surroundings, rushing to their projects or their pre-work snacks. But both Ryner and Coran seem to be missing in action and _that_ irks Katie, seeing as they are the oldest of the lab and also those who will decide where she should be working. The fact that she has to wait around and sit idle until she’s assigned something to do bothers her — she needs to tinker, she needs something to focus on.

Oh, she is _so_ not going to stay quiet. Maybe the library she checked on her first day could work for some passing entertainment?

Yeah, that sounds good. She passes the computer labs and the bathrooms and — yes, the last door, that should be it. Katie eagerly quickens her pace and proceeds to get it but stops shortly at the door when she hears some voices inside.

“-- but are you sure Ms. Altea found it?”  Ryner’s tone was incredulous, almost out of character. Katie should knock and interrupt but the surprise in her boss's voice spikes her curiosity.

Nothing takes her back more than hearing Coran next, sounding uncharastically serious.

“After years of recovering lost research, yes. Allura thinks she’s making a huge amount of progress but she needs people to help” he says and, god, Katie never imagined he could sound so sane.

“And it’s _our lab,_ the one _chosen?_ ”  Katie’s boss asks, still surprised. Coran’s response is immediate.

“Yes” a couple beats pass and the old man sounds more like himself now “Isn’t that just _thrilling_?”

Ryner takes a deep breath. Katie doesn’t need to peek through the ajar door to know she looks shaken to the core.

“Okay — well. Give me some time to think.”  She sounds a little bit more composed now. “But, Coran. Please let’s keep it here. This shall be exclusively our knowledge until we come to a decision”

What are they talking about? What did Katie got herself into?

This is definitely time to knock and that’s just what she does.

There’s a silence and then…

“Come on in” Ryner calls. Katie pushes the door open, trying on her best poker face. It shouldn’t be a problem — back in her childhood, both her and Keith used to have the most innocent, blank expressions. It certainly got them out of trouble more than a few times, a perfect methodical process consisting of three simple steps.

“Good morning, Dr Ryner” _Number one. Keep your voice straight._ “I wanted to know today’s schedule?”

Both her boss and Coran look a little nervous, probably wondering if she heard something. They exchange looks. Katie lets her gaze survey the books filling the walls.

_Number two, don’t stare too much, look elsewhere._

“Good morning, Miss Holt!”  Coran greets, sounding even chipper than usual. Oh, yeah, he’s a good actor, but he doesn’t follow rule number one to an end. “I think you are set to work with me! Shall we go?”

“Let’s do this!”  Katie answers, grinning from ear to ear.

_Number three: smile as confidently as you can._

 

* * *

 

To record for posterity, Katie never meant to overhear any concealed information. She didn’t even got to listen that much!

Even though it’s wrong, she _loves_ the thrill of knowing there’s something going on. She can’t get it out of her head. She thinks about it while walking behind Coran. She thinks about it while working on a new, mindless project. She is still dwelling on it when Hunk steps in the lab and starts tinkering alongside her. So focused in her own tasks, she almost manages not to notice the surprised look he sends her way.

_Rule number two. Don’t stare too much, look elsewhere._

Coran chatters away. Katie keeps typing on her computer.

“Ms Holt” Hunk’s voice calls. She tries to pay it no mind, pretending to be more absorbed in her work than she is. It’s easy programming, she could do this with her eyes closed.

“Excuse me, Ms Holt?”  He tries again and Katie can hear his voice wavering while she types away. It’s almost too tempting to smile smugly but she contains it, dead set on showing no emotion whatsoever. There’s a certain feeling on triumph in this new strategy and she embraces it, she lets the poison in, lets it course through her veins.

He taps her shoulder.

_Rule number two. Rule number two. Rule number —_

“Miss Holt” She’s not moving a muscle, she’s not even blinking. Hunk’s touch is gone but then he’s saying “You are making a few mistakes with your programming”

Her mind short circuits. She can’t understand it, can’t stop her indignation and, without giving it a second of thought, she is turning around.

“ _What!?”_  she shouts, completely taken aback. Rule number one, broken. But, seriously, what the fuck. This is _Hunk_ , who knows this is _children’s task_ for her!

“I’m not doing anything wrong” she spits, then remembers to keep her voice straight and bitterly adds “Mr Garrett”

 _Mr Garrett_ doesn’t seem surprised in the least. He’s the one with a blank face now, one eyebrow raised.

“You did, actually” he calmly affirms, then points to her screen. Katie double checks in less than five minutes. There’s nothing wrong there, no keyboard typo, no systematic mistake.

“Everything is fine” She tells him, trying very hard not to swear under her teeth, briefly wondering if this is some kind of “pulling your pigtails for attention” strategy. Would _Hunk_ , of all people, do that kind of shit? Has he changed _that_ much in six years?

“It’s not” He says again and _how the fuck does he look so calm_. It’s throwing her patience out of the bus.

She stares him down. Hard.

There goes rule number two, huh.

Hunk sighs, but there’s not a single drop of condescence in his tone. Quite the opposite, in fact, he looks like he genuinely means to help.

It makes her blood boil.

“You are double modulating” he simply says and that’s, just, _too much._

“ _This_ is why you interrupted me?”  she retorts, fuming.

“You really really should simple modulate, it’s a waste of time otherwise, that’s all”  He shrugs and for god’s sake, he’s _serious_ about this.

“I’ve doing this for ages and double modulation works fine for me.”  Katie can’t believe she’s really having this conversation. _She knows her code, god’s sake._

“Isn’t it just weird to do it for everything?”  Hunk’s voice is still calm but she can see he’s slowly losing his composure as well. His eyes are starting to twitch “You are wasting time on simple tasks!”  

“Well. _Simple modulation_ is a risk in any occasion” she bites back and she can feel herself getting angrier and angrier. Who does he think he is!? “What if there’s a glitch? And I don’t _lose time_ . I happen to know my code very well, _Mr Garrett._ ”  she spits the last word out with all the malice she can convey.

“I never said you didn’t!”  he exclaims, frustrated. “I just think it’s better!”

“And _I_ just think you are _basic!”_  She’s fuming, she’s fuming, _she’s fuming._

“Basic!? We have a long list of tasks to do!”

“I can tell you where to shove that list —-!”

“AHEM!” Her insult is interrupted by a firm cough. Katie turns around, anger still behind her every move but she freezes when she sees it’s Coran.

As in, her superior. Who has just interrupted her insulting a coworker in a 8th grade manner. On her third day.

Katie is — for the first time in many years — glad she’s a grown-up and can’t be grounded anymore.

 

* * *

 

“I can’t believe we are grounded”  Hunk complains, twenty minutes later. Anger seems to have escaped his system. Katie, on the other hand, still has irritation coursing through her veins.

“We are not grounded, exactly” She mutters, arms crossed. “We are just punished”

“Yeah, by helping the Biology lab” Hunk pauses “Why the hell would scientists have a _cow_!?”

And it’s not a metaphor.

The _very literal cow_ in front of them is the assignment Coran gave them after their poor behaviour. It belongs to the biologists in the building and it’s now Hunk and Katie’s job to milk her and feed her until the end of their shifts.

“They are scientists” Katie huffs in answer to Hunk’s bewilderment. “Of course they have it”

“Her”

“...what?”

“Her. Her name is Kaltenecker” Hunk points to a golden plate in a corner of the cow’s very luxurious room. “Here. See?”

Katie furrows her brow.

“Have you spending too much time with Lance lately?” She asks. Hunk’s expression changes into sad smile as he looks elsewhere. Katie feels a little guilty.

“Not really. I live on the other side of the country, remember?” He answers and when he looks back at her, it’s bittersweet “I’m glad something stuck, though”

Katie feels he’s not only talking about Lance. It’s a fleeting thought and she shoves it down down _down_

“Let’s get to this, okay?” She says and — if Hunk understood her desire of a change of subject —- he doesn’t show it.

 

* * *

 

 

Milking a cow proves to be harder than they thought. Go figure.

It’s the fifth time she’s leaning under the damn thing and, when she’s not avoiding Kaltenecker’s shoves, she’s fighting against her mouth.

Katie avoids the kick by pure reflex.

“Can you please hold her, Hunk!?” she shouts. He does it, not without laughing quietly.

“Do you think Coran saved this as some kind of bonding exercise?” he asks. Katie _finally_ is starting to milk the cow properly, without shoving or biting.

“ _Bonding_?” she remarks with a smirk, amused by his wording “Seriously. Who are you?”

Hunk smiles but doesn’t answer.

“I mean it. I’ve been three months here and I _never_ heard about Kaltenecker” he pauses, trying to reminisce “And I _did_ blow up the microwave a few times.”

Katie raises a brow but keeps her gaze on the cow. That fact doesn’t surprise her that much.

“Experimental cooking?”

Hunk nods before affirming.

“Experimental cooking” He starts biting the nails of the hand that isn’t holding Kaltenecker’s back, as he does every time he thinks hard about something. It’s an old habit from when they were children.

Katie bites her lip — _she doesn’t have to ask, why would she get more involved than she is._

“What is it?” She asks anyway because, why wouldn’t she. She pierces her gaze on the cow’s udders.

Silence.

When Hunk speaks, it’s quiet.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have called your coding weird.” he says and Katie wasn’t expecting an apology, wasn’t expecting Hunk’s voice to cut through her, _wasn’t expecting anything at all_.

Silence again.

She hears herself talk.

“I shouldn’t have called you basic” And when Katie dares to look at him, she’s taken aback by a simple, eternal truth.

It’s Hunk.

It’s Hunk, in front of her, smile soft and eyes wide, full cheeks and dark skin.

It’s Hunk and — even though she’s not Pidge, even though she’s not certain she’ll ever be again, _even though_...

It’s Hunk.

They smile at each other, an unspoken truce floating in the silence between them. And maybe because she’s suddenly nervous (maybe because she’s Katie and Pidge and none and all), she breaks it.

“I still have a few thoughts about where you can shove that fucking list, though’'

Katie has only seen him smile a few times since they remet. It’s been guarded, small, a fogged reflection of what it used to be. Although genuine, it’s a quiet, distant thing.

This time, though, when Hunk laughs, it’s loud. It’s open, careless, _contagious_ , shaking her very core, spreading spreading spreading until  Katie is laughing as well, until she’s feeling — for a brief, brief second — everything is okay in the world.

After the tremor, nothing is the same ever again.

* * *

 

_June 2012_

 

Pidge’s battered hand me down blackberry buzzes in her pocket. Carefully, trying to not drop the ice cream cone in her hand, she balances to fish it from her cargo shorts. Hunk, at her side, doesn’t make a movement to help her, the little shit, all contented with his own lime flavoured cone.

“It’s a message from Keith” she informs after reading it. A single drop of sweat is uncomfortably rolling down her back but both of her hands are too occupied to ever consider rubbing it. Damn, she _hates_ heat. “Apparently Lance convinced them to make a little road trip to La Havana and their car died down in the middle of nowhere”  

She’s trying _very_ hard not to chuckle.

“Oh god, I bet they were fighting the whole time” Hunk offhandedly comments, still licking his cone. Then he stops and looks at her with one of the most devious smiles Pidge has ever witnessed. And she owns a mirror “I pity Shiro”

Okay, that’s it. Universe, don’t blame her for cracking up.

The thing about their friendship is how everyone usually pegs Hunk as the golden sunshine too nice boy and Pidge as the, well, the bitch. Maybe it’s because, at first glance, he just smiles a lot and is overall polite and nice and Pidge has a resting bitch face 80% of the time when the conversation  doesn’t involve science. But that superficial appearance doesn’t contemplate that Pidge zones out _a lot_ and well, she thinks hard, hence the resting bitch expression.

Hunk, on the other side, is a really good dude but well, he’s salty as fuck. Blunt, he’ll tell stuff as it is and sometimes he even _delights_ on being right.  And her? She loves that. She loves not being the only one to state the outright stupid when she sees it.

“ You are only saying that because he still hides his rice recipe from you, you petty little motherfucker” she states once she’s calmed down, still grinning from ear to ear.

“I’m almost 7 feet tall”  he retorts, shrugging. It’s his twin grin, though, the one that betrays him.

Silence rests in between, only interrupted by the calm summer breeze. This day feels obnoxiously hot, choking each and every one of Pidge’s senses. Numbness is such a common state for her these days and it’s maybe the lack of things to do that makes her think more and more and…

No.

She shakes her head to avoid the subject. She’s bored. She’s too bored, she needs to do something and programming is a discarded option, too mechanical at this point. Repairing Hunk’s van has proven to be a fun alternative the last few days, but it’s almost done. The only thing left is to add some final personal touches, and Pidge doesn’t want to meddle in _Hunk’s_ _van_ with _her_ additions.

“What are you thinking about?” Hunk’s voice pulls her back. He’s looking straight at her now, his dark face serious, brows furrowed, trying to decipher what’s going on. Probably already aware.

She longs for those days in which her friends weren’t meticulously observing her as she were a ticking time bomb. Expecting the imminent detonation, they tiptoe around her, they poke and prod without even being conscious of it.

“I’m so bored I seriously consider going camping when we are done with your van” she says instead, lying through her teeth and trying to sound as nonchalant as possible.

Hunk seriously _chokes_ on his ice cream.

“You... _You_ want to do…”  he tries to say in between coughs. He doubles down in two and his amusement is so blatantly disrespectful Pidge can’t contain helping him… with a very hard punch in his back.

“What?”  he asks, once he’s recovered, eyes glassy, voice high.

“Camping” Pidge repeats, smiling slightly at his bewilderment. He just blinks and does a double take.

“You hate camping” Hunk states slowly, rolling the words as they were a complicated theorem to solve “You can’t _stand_ outdoors. Did you think this through at all?”

She stays in silence for a bit. No, she _didn’t_ . Which, yes, weird. Strangely out of character. But she’s so _bored_  and maybe that’s what she needs, being a little out of her comfort zone. It’s time she gets a grip. It’s time to move on.

“Maybe it’s time I calculate a whole new set of probabilities…” Pidge simply tells him.

Hunk is still staring oddly at her. Silence stretches.

She thinks of a time in which she would have been teased too.

“What about a roadtrip?” Hunk says, thoughtfully. “It includes the travel thing and there’s less nature”

Pidge’s brain starts to buzz, taking the idea in and, to be honest…

“That doesn’t sound bad” she hears herself say. A beat passes in which she looks at Hunk, she _really_ looks at him. Last night’s memories of stargazing in the hill come crashing back. She smiles “That doesn’t sound half bad”

Hunk’s expression turns more determinated as he extends his fist for a bump.

“Team Punk?” His voice is veiled with laughter and Pidge feels like everything could be okay from now on. She trusts him. _Oh god, how she trusts him._

“Team Punk” She answers, bumping his fist against hers.

In some way, it feels like a promise.

 

* * *

 

Years later, buried under the covers, dried tears on her cheeks, Katie would remember this moment as the turning point before everything started falling apart.

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SO MANY FLASHBACKS. I hope the coming back and forth doesn't make it too confusing for y'all. Please tell me if that's the case.  
> There's so much stuff to uncover, so KEEP AN EYE OUT.  
> As always, comments are super well received so don't be shy!  
> Tell me whatchu think here or scream with me at @hihereami on tumblr! Love you all and until next time!
> 
> * * *
> 
> [Fic's playlist]()

**Author's Note:**

> I'm so excited!  
>  Please leave a comment if you can and here's ****
> 
> [_the fic's playlist_ in case you are interested](https://open.spotify.com/user/aimeejene/playlist/4RhWr3GpZHME2YbxwyzYJj?si=HjzCpncGQJyhanyMxvw3Kw)


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